Chapter 4: Getting to Know You.

Miko watched in dismay as Kyp stormed ahead. He wasn't sure what had set his Master off and into such a foul mood but Kyp was agitated. Miko could see it in the Rogue Jedi's movements. In the deliberate way his heels touched the ground first and then the rest of his booted foot would snap down to the ground after it. He could even sense the displeasure tingling through their force bond which Kyp had, for the moment, cut down to minimal contact.

"Thanks." Cam said suddenly, causing Miko to tear his gaze from his Master's retreating back. "Thanks for what you said back in the hangar. For what you did…" she paused and stared at her feet as she continued to limp along with Miko's continued assistance. "I would've died there if you hadn't intervened."

Miko smiled at her and shook his dark brown haired head. "He would have kept you alive. He needs you alive." He replied, though the comment was not meant to nor did it comfort her. It simply was a fact. Cam finally nodded in acceptance of his words.

"Alright, thanks for stopping me from going after him. If I had gone I would be on my way back to Nal Hutta and my old owner. At least with me free I have a chance to rescue my family, despite that chance's slimness."

Miko's head snapped up at her words. "You're a slave?!"

Cam gave an emotionless nod. "I was a dancing girl for Droga the Hutt for many years. Too many years! I was born there."

"I've heard of Droga and his dealings." Miko commented with distaste.

Cam nodded again and flashed Miko a galaxy-weary smile. "Who hasn't? He follows in the footsteps, or should I say slug-trail, of his cousin, Jabba." She replied with a snort of bitter amusement. "I fear that my family and friends will be tortured for what they did to him. I just hope my father has sense enough not to enrage him for Droga will not hesitate to kill him before he has us all together, if he is vexed."

Miko tightened his grip about her waist in comfort. "What did they do that caused Droga to put such a bounty on your heads?" he inquired and Cam shook her head. "Its okay if you don't want to talk about it. I didn't mean to pry!" he added hastily and Cam gave a genuine smile.

"No, it's just a very long story that I'm too weary to recount right now."

Miko nodded his head in respect for her wishes and turned back to face forwards. He knew that Cam wanted to relieve herself of the burden of her past by telling someone but he would respect her wishes and wait until she was ready to speak to him.

"I'm sure they'll be fine." He said after a long pause and then quickly corrected his patronising comment. "By 'fine' I mean 'alive' for when you rescue them." His eyes shifted nervously to Cam's face but she didn't seem offended by his comment. Instead she grinned and then chuckled lightly at the young Jedi's expense.

Miko blushed slightly and joined the soft laughter though the way the muscles in Kyp's shoulders tensed at the sound didn't escape his view.

"Thank you again…what's your name?" Cam prompted with a slight giggle and he turned and told her, suddenly very aware of his Master's scrutiny. "Thank you, Miko," she grinned and then became suddenly serious. "For making me laugh when all I really feel like doing is crying."

Miko soothed her again and managed to take a few more steps before she sobbed aloud and her legs went from underneath her. Miko set her down carefully and then yelled to Kyp who had continued to stride ahead in a universe all of his own.

Kyp was beside them in a matter of nanoseconds and glancing over the scene before him. He crouched down low beside the female smuggler and Miko watched slightly perturbed when the older man took her hands in his.

"She's gone into shock! We need to get her to the med-bay now!"

-ooooo-

Blinding light was the only thing that told Cam that she was awake.

'Wait! I've been unconscious?' she thought opening her eyes and then clamping them shut yet again as the light stabbed at them for a second time. She rubbed them frantically and blinked a number of times before she could manage to squint them open.

"I'll dim the lights." A voice announced causing Cam's head to turn in it's owner's direction.

The lights dimmed by forty percent and she was finally able to take in her surroundings.

A simple med room. Really more of a place used to store med equipment.

Cam groaned and pulled herself to sit upright on the small bunk that she was lying on, fiery pains in her stomach muscles protested at the sudden strain after the beating she had received from the Bounty Hunter. Her wounds had been cleaned and the more serious one on her right shoulder had been covered with a bacta patch. She fingered it thoughtfully, wincing when she found it tender still.

"What happened?" she queried turning back to the voice's owner.

Kyp Durron gave her a small smile and moved to sit beside her, brushing his shoulder length black hair from his eyes. He began to remove the dressing on her right shoulder as he spoke softly.

"A few blocks away from the hangar you went into shock." He paused, gently pressing the irritated looking scar-skin causing her to cringe again slightly in pain. "You had lost a considerable amount of blood and had suffered a severe trauma."

Kyp shifted slightly to retrieve a new bacta patch from a nearby open medkit but Cam placed a hand atop his causing him to stop and look at her, though she was unaware of the tingle her touch sent up his spine.

"Leave it." She said quietly, a grim expression on her bruised yet pretty face.

"It'll scar." He warned. "Bacta can stop that if-"

"No." she cut him off gently and lifted her hand from his to brush the three parallel scars the traversed her shoulder. "It'll serve as a reminder." She paused again, her eyes flickering from Kyp's face to the wall opposite. "It'll keep me going. Make me strive harder to get them back!"

Kyp nodded in understanding and ceased his ministrations, turning his gaze also to the opposed wall. It was off-white in colour with grubby hand marks mid way up it and a damp patch darkening a ceiling corner.

The silence was slightly awkward though not unbearably so and it was a long, drawn out moment before either spoke. It was Cam's voice that first assaulted the quiet.

"Where is Miko?" she asked and the slightly stung look that passed over Kyp's striking features was not missed by her keen gaze. He smothered it quickly, however, and kept his steady stare on the murky wall that faced them.

"He 'forgot' his lightsabre." He replied evenly. "He's on his way back to the hangar to retrieve it."

Cam nodded, trying to seem only politely interested but as Kyp smirked and glanced at her she began to wonder if he had heard her thoughts about Miko.

"He handled the situation back there pretty well." He stated, clearing his throat. "Miko is more of a…people person than I am." He risked a glance at her from the corner of his eye and saw the small grin that lit her face.

"And what type of person are you, Kyp Durron?" her voice was low and semi-teasing as Kyp turned to regard her fully, attempting to keep the smile from his own lips as he replied.

"I let my lightsabre do the talking." He patted the cylindrical, silver hilt at his side and Cam's night blue eyes flicked briefly from his face down to his waist.

"Ah!" she replied knowingly, allowing her eyes to travel slowly back up to his. She pulled her legs up onto the bunk and crossed them as if she was a small child waiting for a story, leaning her elbows on her knees and crossing her arms loosely. "Your typical tall, dark, handsome stranger who rides in on his swoop bike to save the damsel in distress!"

Kyp arched a dark eyebrow at her amused smirk. "Handsome?"

It was simply a statement. One that he had said in jest. One that he had expected to prompt a laugh not a shy downwards glance and a rising flush on her cheeks. He watched closely as Cam fidgeted with her braided hair and avoided his emerald gaze.

Abruptly she switched the conversation direction.

"Twice you've saved me. Twice in one night."

"Once." Kyp corrected glancing back at the wall, a plummeting feeling in his stomach. "Miko rescued you the second time."

"By saying 'you' I meant the Jedi in general." She replied, her voice and expression both unreadable.

"Oh." Kyp replied feeling a flush creep up his own cheeks. It was his turn to shift nervously.

Was she testing him in some bizarre way?

Kyp's silent query went unanswered and the pair fell into a long silence that neither knew how to break. Kyp's mind swirled in confusion. Never before had the Force been so unclear or his convictions so sorely tried. She was a slave trader. A smuggler who thrived on shipping helpless innocents to scum-filled worlds where they would, most likely, be worked to death. She was one of them. The enemy. The beings who had sold his family into slavery. The ones that he had sworn to eradicate from the galaxy…and yet…he couldn't bring himself to feel hatred for her. He turned his head slightly to gaze at her, sitting beside him, her back hunched from weariness and her mental shields down completely. Her face was tired and the fierce, confident young woman that had been Camilly Freelancer suddenly turned into a frightened girl, barely out of her teens and unexpectedly alone. All of her front and ferocious façade had melted away…or was this sudden vulnerability, this helplessness a concealment of her true persona? Kyp's mind mulled over the thought as it sparked into existence. Perhaps she simply wished to gain his trust and ship him back into slavery, for Jedi prisoners were in great exigency, especially among the Hutts since Princess Leia had slaughtered the illustrious Jabba.

Cam must have sensed Kyp's eyes on her for her night blue stare unexpectedly turned and met with his.

"What?" she asked dragging Kyp from his contemplations. "Do I have a holo on my head?"

Kyp almost smirked at her characteristic sarcasm but stifled it before it could break out. Instead he shook his head.

"Just thinking." He replied and Cam gave a small nod of acceptance.

Suddenly, impulse struck and before Kyp realised, words were rolling from his tongue. He had never before had the opportunity to get 'inside' the head of the 'enemy' and he was curious to know what cold, dispassionate mind was required to sell someone's life.

"What of your father's business, Cam? How can you live doing what you do? Isn't the slave trade unjust?" he shook his head "I don't know how you live with yourself! How can you stomach the knowledge that you have sentenced hundreds, maybe even thousands of beings to an early grave!" he paused watching Cam's reaction carefully but she simply looked straight back at him. No shame on her face, no remorse behind those deep sapphire pools. Instead her gaze seemed almost inquisitive and Kyp faltered, debating whether he should continue. He cleared his throat and glanced away from her eyes and to the mucky wall that was becoming quite a focal point. "I was sold into slavery as a child and spent most of my childhood in the mines of Kessel. You grow up fast in slavery. I lost my innocence long before I should have!"

He felt Cam shift her weight forwards slightly and he thought that she was pulling away from him in anger but she simply adjusted her legs beneath her and leaned back against the wall. When she spoke her voice was full of emotion and caught in her throat at the end of each sentence.

"Do not talk of things you know little of, Jedi." She said softly and icily, the friendship that had been growing between them since Kyp had saved her life suddenly dissipating like a mist in the heat of the sun.

Kyp's laugh was harsh and mocking. "Things that I know little of?!" he snorted. "Let me tell you, Freelancer, that I know a lot more than you think!" he snorted again. "Your kind disgust me! I should have let that bounty Hunter take you!"

The silence that fell was absolute and Kyp felt the barely controlled fury that emanated from the slight body beside him. Quietly, and in clipped tones she began to speak.

"Let me tell you about my family, Kyp Durron. Let me tell you how my mother was stolen away from my father and brother while she carried me. Let me tell you how she was sold to a repulsive old Hutt named Droga who forced her into his ranks of many dancing girls. How she gave me birth in the squalor of his palace dungeons where they were kept, how she died on my tenth birthday because she would not let Droga have me as a dancing girl. Little matter. Let me tell you how I was forced to become his dancing girl anyway. How I met my dear Tolou the Twi'lek, how she cared for me and never let any of Droga's 'customers' touch me. How then hope was restored to me when my father bought me out of slavery. How I had to watch his devastated face when I told him how my mother had died. How I travelled the galaxy with him killing those who had sealed my mother's and my fate. How then we flew under the pretence of being slave traders in order to ambush the shipments of slaves and take them to far away worlds where they could work themselves out of poverty. How we have helped thousands of slaves make lives and families for themselves!" she shook her head lightly and moved so that she knelt facing Kyp. "You say you lost your childhood and innocence in slavery." Her eyes flashed like force lightening. "So! Did! I!" She paused searching his face with her eyes. Anguish and anger shone as they filled with tears, their night blue so fierce that Kyp was speechless.

"Let me tell you how that when go to Nal Hutta to rescue my family that I will gut Droga, the true culprit of the slave trade, like an oversized slug!" she stared hard at Kyp, rage clear in her features and Kyp could only gaze back in cold shock.

Cam snorted, much in the way that Kyp had previously, pushed herself off the medcot as if all she desired in the universe was to be as far away from Kyp Durron as possible. Her sudden contempt for him was barely disguised.

"I…I'm sorry-" Kyp began but Cam raised her hand in a sharp slicing motion.

"Like I said, Durron, don't talk of things you know little of!"

-ooooo-